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Monday, June 9, 2014

Missions in Faction War

The History of Factional Warfare Missions

Mission running has been a part of Faction War since FW was
first implemented back in 2008 in the Empyrean Age expansion. FW missions were
setup quite a bit differently than high sec missions:

First, they were designed to be quite a bit easier,
objective-wise, than their high-sec counterparts of the same level. Most
FW-based missions require killing a singular object or NPC, or a small group of
NPCs.

Secondly, although easier from a mechanics standpoint, they
were also intended to be riskier from a PVP standpoint. Long before the
factions could take sovereignty from each other, (which was introduced four
years later in Inferno) the missions were designed to make the pilot travel
into hostile ‘enemy’ territory, which at that point were set areas of sovereign
space.

And finally, in addition to having to travel further than
average missions, and into more hostile areas of space, a public beacon would
show up in local at the site of the mission, allowing people to easily warp to
the missions and potentially disrupt the mission runner’s abilities to complete
their mission.

Inferno

Massive changes were made to Faction War in the 2012
expansion of Inferno. And, significant updates and changes have been made since
then. However, one thing that has barely been touched is Faction Warfare
missions.

The addition of sovereignty mechanics meant that players
would now have a direct impact on what constituted ‘Amarrian’ space vs ‘Minmatar’
space. (Or Gallente/Caldari) However, the missions remain tied to the original,
underlying systems that the Factions originally owned pre-Inferno. This means
that depending on which systems militia decide to take sovereignty in, their
missions can now take them to friendly, safe territory.

Furthermore, warzone control factors additionally impact
mission payouts. So, in addition to running these easier missions in the safety
of their home systems, militia pilots will often be getting paid as much as 3
times as much for them. With certain, basic social skills, and warzone control
4, payouts can reach as high as 60,000 LP or more. (While running a few
missions at Tier 5, I personally got missions with as much as 80-90K LP
payouts, with only basic social skills trained to lvl 3.)

Current Issues

There are currently several main issues with missions in Faction
War. Some of these issues have been around since Faction Warfare was first
introduced and have simply never been addressed. Other issues have been
introduced or exacerbated by changes made in Inferno, or in later expansions
and patches.

Risk vs. Reward

The first, and most obvious issue is that of risk vs.
reward. In many ways, the outrage over plex farming has served as a smoke
screen, disguising the real source of LP farming in Faction Warfare. Not only
is mission running quicker, and less dangerous then plexing, it also yields
significantly more LP.

While there are no publicly released numbers to back it up,
I would claim with much confidence that the majority of LP that gets earned in
FW comes from mission running –by a massively wide margin.

Inconsistency Between Militias

The second issue is that not all missions are created
equally. FW missions greatly make use of factional differences –therefore depending
on which militia you are in will depend on what ships, objectives, and etc.,
you will encounter in your mission.

As a result, lvl 4 missions in one militia might be quite a
bit harder than lvl missions in another.

Currently, missions in Minmatar militia are considered to be
the easiest, based on the NPCs and objectives encountered. Most Minmatar
militia pilots run missions in nothing more than a stealth bomber.

Rewards, Consequences, and Impact

The third major issue with missions is that they mean
nothing in Faction Warfare, and yet yield the greatest rewards.

In many ways, missions in FW feel like a ‘tacked on’
mechanic. While running missions produces the best income in Faction War,
ISK/HR, there is nothing in mission running that is really at all connected to
any of the other militia game mechanics—mechanics involving sovereignty,
warzone control, and the battle between the factions.

Solutions

I’ve read and discussed quite a few potential solutions to
Faction War missions with members of other Factions. Some of these range from
band aid fixes –such as temporarily adjusting mission payouts so that plexing
and pvp payouts become at least an equal source of income –to completely
revamping mission objectives and NPC behaviors.

I will be detailing some of my own ideas for fixing FW
missions in a later post.

3 comments:

No reason to hold back then. If we want to see full corp involvement in FW, and a full range of ships involved, then pass out LP for holding moons under a banner. The only thing is, the LP reward should be higher the lower the system control is for that faction. Such status could eliminate the need for some licensing fees for running towers in controlled space.. unless those certificates were already removed. Poor memory. CCP does seem to want towers in lowsec though.

Maybe there could be a deployable that siphons away LP instead of reacted materials.

Sneaking around in stealth bombers, running away from any sign other players isn't PvP. There are a number of people whose only FW activity is power running FW missions. You can't catch them on the gate, you can't catch them on the mission gate, you can't wait inside the mission pled because the rats shoot everyone.

Changing the missions to be something other than headhunting missions wouldn't be a bad idea. Changing the mission layout to allow for PC defenders wouldn't be bad either.

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